Pegida, the German anti-Islam street movement, has been accused of racism after it objected to the faces of black and Middle Eastern children featuring on packaging for the country’s iconic Kinder chocolates.

“They’ll stop at nothing,” a regional branch of Pegida at south-west Germany’s Lake Constance wrote on Facebook, beside a picture of the new packaging. “Can you really buy them like this, or is this a joke?”

“They’re trying to pass this s*** off as normal. Poor Germany,” one commenter wrote.

In fact, the children featured on the chocolate wrappers are members of the German national football team.

It appears Pegida were unaware the packaging is a special edition released in advance of the European football championships, featuring pictures of the German players from their childhood.

People wave 'Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the West' (Pegida) flagsCredit:
EPA/SEBASTIAN KAHNERT, file

The two children Pegdia objected to are Jerome Boateng, the Bayern Munich defender; and lkay Gündoğan, the Borussia Dortmund midfielder.

Both are in fact German citizens. Boaten was born in Berlin, to a German mother and a Ghanaian father.

Gündoğan was born in the western German city Gelsenkirchen, the child of Turkish immigrants.

Pegida, or Patriotic Europeans against the Islamisation of the West, was born in the east German city of Dresden in 2014.

Packages of a popular chocolate bar with childhood pictures of German national soccer players, from top, Jerome Boateng, Lukas Podolski and Ilkay GundoganCredit:
AP/Ferdinand Ostrop